Following Moldovan women who "commute" for six to twelve months at a time to work as domestics in Istanbul, Worker-Mothers on the Margins of Europe explores the world of undocumented migrants from a postsocialist state. Leyla J. Keough examines the gendered moral economies that shape the perspectives of the migrants, their employers in Turkey, their communities in Moldova, and the International Organization for Migration. She finds that their socialist past continues to color how the women view their labor and their roles within their families, even as they are affected by the same shifts in the global economy that drive migration elsewhere. Keough puts scholarship on gender and migration into dialogue with postsocialist studies and offers a critical assessment of international anti-trafficking efforts.
Leyla J. Keough is Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Middle East Studies at Hampshire College and a former Wilson Center research scholar.
1. The "Returns" of Mobile Mothers
2. Uplift in Gagauz Yeri
3. Desiring a New Domestic
4. Working in Istanbul
5. Managing Migration
Conclusion: Driven Women
Personitas
Cosecha Roja
Dr. Mortis
La Ventana de Orfeo 08